Change to Lecture Capture Archiving Policy

In previous years, Timetabled Lecture Captures were retained and made available for the subsequent academic year following recording. After which time they were permanently deleted.

Henceforth, this retention period will be extended from 2 to 5 years – placing the retention of lecture recordings in–line with the VLE module site lifespan. With the new policy, recordings will be permanently deleted starting 2021, as part of an annual deletion process in late August/early September at the end of the Summer Vacation. For example, a lecture capture made in the Spring Term of 2015 will be automatically deleted at the end of the Summer vacation in 2021.

Previous viewing habits have shown that for the vast majority of recordings, students only use them whilst studying on a given module. After which point, the utilisation of old captures drops off considerably by the end of the subsequent academic year. As such, current recordings will continue to be made ‘unavailable’ to students after 2 years, but will still be accessible and visible to staff, providing departments with the flexibility to provide students with access to older recordings where a need exists.

Why is this changing?

With the move from Echo360 to Panopto as the University’s chosen platform for the recording of lectures, we are no longer required to operate under the terms of the previous storage arrangement.

As such, at the Spring Replay Steering Group meeting, a change to the existing policy was discussed. Stakeholders considered the benefits of recordings being retained to accommodate for students on leaves of absences (LOA), and for members of academic staff who teach on modules which are not taught on a yearly basis. The decision was later ratified when the Steering Group met again at the end of the Summer Term.

Following this time period, recordings will be archived in an ‘unavailable’ state.

How will this affect me?

As was the case previously, recordings using Personal Recording software or uploaded video resources, (i.e. those not made using the timetabled Lecture Capture service) will not be made unavailable or automatically deleted as part of this policy and will therefore remain available for viewing on an ongoing basis.

Affected staff will be notified again prior to recordings being made unavailable in September after any Summer assessment resits.